Day 6 - Lysboten

Woke up this morning and it was raining, warm rain to be sure but still wet. So rather than pack the tent and move on, I decided to have a 'rest day'. The valley was shrouded in low cloud and I decided my bum could do with a day without being in the saddle.

Some rest day. Near here is a famous rock called the Kjerag. To get to it is a 2 hour moderately difficult hike. Not the sort of thing you want to take your maiden aunt for a jolly day out. I decided to make this even more difficult by wearing my bike jacket which weighs a ton. I intended to bring my rain jacket as a backup in case the weather turned but I for got it so had to make do with the fully armoured thing. 3 good hard steep climbs pointed out the error to me.

Kjerrag is a boulder stuck between two cliff faces with a 1000 meter drop beneath it. Real arse puckering stuff if you don't like heights. Hundreds of people a day make the 4 hour round trip to spend 10 minutes there and scare the crap out of themselves. It is genuinely dangerous. To get onto the boulder you have to step on a ledge about 30cm wide and the only thing to hold is a 15cm loop of rope. If you slip, it is a sheer drop, right to the fjord. There are no Health & Safety people in Norway, I think....

If you are brave enough to face the valley, this is the view you would get. I didn't & took this from the cliff-top, a good meter from the edge.

On the way back, I met some basejumpers who don't bother with the return walk, they just jump off and fly back. I have to confess, my feet were so sore, the idea had a lot of appeal. I met one of them later and he had been given a hang-glider and he didn't have a clue how to put it together, let alone fly it. That didn't stop him trying though. Then this older more experienced guy showed up and eventually talked him out of it. Each year, some of these guys impact the ground with terminal results....lots of balls but brains?